Dear Sean

Seventeen

Paul would always say that it wasn’t our fault that Uncle Ringo left the band for a while.

We’d really screwed up this time.

Paul I-can-fucking-do-everything McCartney was sitting at Ringo’s drums, ready to scrap an album together, with a missing Beatle.

Shit. This wasn’t going to work. Harrison was equally pessimistic, I could tell; he was looking sideways at Paul, probably thinking that Paul was a know-it-all pain in the arse.

By then, we’d already gone to India to meditate.

I was woken up by a sudden weight dropping onto my chest. I groaned and tried to roll over, only to find myself held in place by… Paul’s body. I squinted at him, sitting tranquilly on my torso, while I patted the night table for my glasses. What the fuck?

“Wake up, love,” Paul said, twisting and tugging a lock of my grown-out hair. “Busy day today.”

“Doing what?”

“Oh, we’ve nothing planned… But I’m here, so might as well do something…” he said, his face breaking into a smile, as he wiggled his eyebrows in an exaggeratedly suggestive way.

That trip was…most enlightening.

“Prue… come out, love,” I coaxed.

“It’s not healthy… the Maharishi says this is too intense,” George added.

Prudence Farrow had been in her hut for nearly three weeks now, and we were all starting to get worried. George shot me a look that clearly told me he was persuaded she was mental.

I knocked on the door again. “Dear Prudence,” I sang, “won’t you come out to play?”

From inside sounded a little laugh. I smiled; I’d gotten at least some reaction out of her.

“Prudence, love, you’ve got to come outside, it’s a beautiful day.”

“I’m meditating.”

That was her last word on the matter. Undeterred, I ran to Paul’s hut, where he opened, grinning slightly when he saw me.

“Let’s write a song,” I said.

“Now?” he asked.

I nodded.

Which eventually led up to us, Paul, Ringo, George and I, clustering in front of Prudence’s hut, with all our instruments, playing her the song we’d written about her.

The door creaked and her head poked out of the opening.